BPP, DICON Partner to Boost Local Defence Manufacturing

The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) have agreed to establish a structured partnership. According to a statement by BPP’s Assistant Chief Information Officer, Ngozi Anyaelezu, in Abuja on Friday, this is to fully operationalise the Federal Government’s ‘Nigeria First’ policy in the defence and security sectors. Anyaelezu said the partnership was aimed at boosting domestic defence investments, strengthening local military manufacturing and promoting national self-reliance. She said the partnership was the focus of a courtesy visit by the Director-General (D-G) of DICON, Maj.-Gen. Babatunde Alaya, to the D-G, BPP, Dr Adebowale Adedokun, on Thursday. Meanwhile, Adedokun has commended the DICON leadership for taking proactive steps to engage the BPP on procurement regulatory mechanisms. He said the ‘Nigeria First’ policy mandated Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to prioritise domestic products and services without compromising quality or global benchmarks. According to him, the policy is part of President Bola Tinubu’s transformative agenda, with emphasis on enforcing domestic preference in public procurement. Adedokun said the policy gave indigenous defence producers and local military suppliers the first right of refusal for defence-related procurement. He reaffirmed the BPP’s commitment to collaborating with DICON to streamline procurement frameworks and institutionalise domestic preference standards. Earlier, Alaya said the partnership would create a robust institutional alliance to integrate defence investments into the ‘Nigeria First’ policy framework. He said this would ensure that national security expenditure directly contributed to industrial growth and job creation. Alaya said DICON was committed to ensuring that Nigeria’s national security needs were met locally. He said that collaboration with BPP was essential to aligning the corporation’s procurement pathways with local content compliance and ensuring that public funds spent on defence yielded measurable economic returns for the nation. The meeting ended with both agencies agreeing to establish a joint technical working committee to formalise the operational roadmap for implementation. (NAN)